Retired D.E.A. push Eric Holder for an October surprise on pot heads

A handful of former drug czars, and retired D.E.A. chiefs held a press teleconference today to campaign harder against pot law reform in Washington, Colorado, and Oregon.

The group wants President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to come out against Initiative 502, Amendment 64 and Measure 80, but so far, the President, Attorney General Holder, and the current DEA chief have stayed mum.

“It’s shocking,” said former drug czar John Walters.

On Sept. 7, eleven former DEA heads and drug czars said they wrote President Obama, ccing Mr. Holder, urging him to denounce any sort of weed decriminalization. Walters said the Dept. of Justice didn’t call them back.

The DOJ might not meddle in state initiatives, like they did in California’s Prop 19 vote of 2010, Walters said.

In October, 2010, Mr. Holder flew into California and proclaimed that the feds would retaliate if California treated the drug like alcohol. Prop 19 lost 46-54, by around a half a million votes.

Walters said a reporter told him, “the Justice Department has taken a position that they didn’t want to speculate on ballot initiatives [in 2012].”

When asked it if was appropriate for former staff to tell the current DOJ how to do its job, former DEA head and teleconference moderator Peter Bensinger said, “We’re not trying to criticize them or tell them how to do their jobs. This is not a political teleconference.”

Two former U.S. Attorneys and a former FBI head in Seattle with the I-502 campaign called the Monday press conference, “a misguided attempt to influence state elections.”

“As recently serving U.S. Attorneys and the former FBI Special Agent in Charge in Seattle, we are dismayed …” New Approach Washington wrote. “Those pressuring the Justice Department to act precipitously are using the same rhetoric and arguments they have used for decades, defending federal policies that have neither ended the illegal trade in marijuana nor alleviated the violence and danger that arises from the black market. We are opposed to the use of marijuana and, as our own records of service confirm, we are deeply committed to stopping the criminal activities and violence of drug organizations and gangs that threaten Americans.”

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